Vikki Campion: Why old-school independents have no hope against the ‘Hollywood Teals’
Old-school independents will not have a hope of winning in the day of the Hollywood Teal: Lights, cameras, cash, writes Vikki Campion.
Opinion
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Kids of old-school independents remember their weekends door-knocking, which in the country meant their job was opening gates at the top of long, dusty driveways and waiting, sometimes hours, for dad to resurface, full of tea and constituent to-do’s.
He wasn’t sponsored on Facebook by multimillionaire fairy godmothers and would not have a hope of winning today. Instead, we have the Hollywood Teal: Lights, cameras, cash.
We have a US model where the Climate 200 candidates who say they are “independent” are fed millions from the climate crowd for campaigns that cost more per candidate last federal election than any other party, including billionaire Clive Palmer.
While Clive’s candidates were handed little more than a Nokia and a couple of corflutes, the Climate 200 team, who call themselves “independents”, spent up to $2.2m per seat. Early spending so far promises to make that seem like loose change in the ashtray.
An election has not even been called and the self-dubbed “shadow member” for Bradfield, Climate 200-funded Nicolette Boele, has already splashed $86,000 in 30 days, some $2866 a day, on Facebook and Instagram ads – the cost of an entire campaign for some incumbents.
Climate 200 spent $40,000 on Google ads in that time, as well as $436,700 on Facebook and Instagram in the past 90 days, not lauding their policies but attacking the Coalition.
Climate 200 also funds ads on a plethora of unbadged pages such as “independent News”, which, shock, horror, features the exact same video of a certain disgruntled former PM pouring bile on the guy who ended up replacing him.
It’s almost as if Climate 200 candidates are an ancillary wing of the Labor Party.
Climate 200 refuses to let anyone call them a party, but they have a directory of candidates they are funding online. See if you last if you speak the truth on the environmental damage of wind and solar.
On Thursday, Climate 200 spent $17,000 on political ads to run on Meta, beating the Australian government, which spent some $14,000 for the day.
When you compare it like for like, it isn’t the Liberals and Nationals splashing huge sums from mining like Climate 200 pretends as much as it is fake “independents” who land massive sums from wind kings and solar squatters and other shareholders invested up to their necks in the intermittent grift.
Climate 200 incumbent Monique Ryan, whose 2022 campaign was the second-most expensive in the country (and up to 20 times the cost of a run-of-the-mill federal campaign) at a cost of $2.12m, has spent $54,700 in the past month on Meta, as well as $10,050 on Google – a bit more than the kitchen table country independent spent on his stamps.
That’s $107.1K in 90 days from the “independent” versus her Kooyong competition, Liberal Amelia Hamer, who has only spent $9000.
In a great mystery of modern politics, all these independents seem to say the same thing.
Ads that began on February 11 from Dr Ryan’s page don’t so much advertise her work to Kooyong, as they do warn other seats in other states against Mr Dutton.
A more cynical person would question whether Climate 200 is using Dr Ryan’s “independent” platform to get its core message out. Almost like a central campaign headquarters?
Likewise, Wentworth MP Allegra Spender, whose campaign three years ago cost $2.1m, has this month spent $15,400 on Google ads and more than $1000 a day for the past month on Facebook and Instagram.
It’s a bit much for these guys to be spending $22,000 a week targeting those doom-scrolling in the dozy hours, and still pretending they are the underfunded underdogs who desperately need your donation, which a mysterious fairy godmother promises to double for them if you do.
Such is their transparency; they won’t advertise that generous soul.
It works for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese who, analysis of the voting records shows, is the ultimate beneficiary of the “independent” Climate 200 vote.
Genuine independents, moved by concern, frustration or desire from a community base, have no hope against the Hollywood Teal, whose budget is bigger than any other party, let alone any other person getting meagre donations from a kitchen table campaign while their kid still waits in the sun at the top of the driveway.
ENVIRONMENTALISTS USE COMMUNIST TACTICS TO SHUT DOWN FARMERS
You mow the grass, water the plants, pay the rates, mortgage, insurance and water bills, but under a new government “pink” zone, it’s illegal to pick any flower that blossoms in your garden.
This is the insanity of draft Native Vegetation Regulatory Maps rolling out across NSW where owners are told populous seedlings are, according to government bureaucrats using satellite imagery, “critically endangered biodiversity” that must be protected at all costs.
If the government took your balcony or backyard, charged you rates, then sent you a fine if you trimmed a tree, the Teal seats would lose their minds.
Yet that’s exactly what’s happening to beef producers, eucalyptus oil and timber producers.
With no compensation or consultation, the NSW government has taken 90 per cent of Matthew Cumming’s property.
The Blue Mallee and Mallee Broombush, deemed “critically endangered”, means he is unable to make an income on his farm.
He’s been zoned into poverty with no warning but still has to pay for it.
It’s like paying registration for a car you can no longer drive because the state has taken the steering wheel.
His neighbour, Annabelle Davis, founder of the Landholder’s Right to Farm group, had trees the Davis family planted to produce eucalyptus oil deemed untouchable because the pink zone maps it illegal.
In a fair Australia, when government edicts send you broke, you get compensated for it, such as the billions of dollars shelled out to airlines because of government Covid restrictions.
But the pink zone allows the NSW government to steal land and strangle farms.
It’s pure communism. We don’t teach our kids to take whatever they want from the shop, but to save up and buy it. Perhaps this is a lesson yet to be learnt by the NSW government.
LIFTER
SA Premier Peter Malinauskas, the first political leader to wake up to the green hydrogen fantasy, scrapping the subsidies to set aside $593m to save the Whyalla Steelworks.
LEANER
Queensland ex-premier Steven Miles, who has introduced a bill to lean on regional Queenslanders to subsidise city transport forever, with his new bill to keep 50c fares indefinitely.
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